The date I’ve been mourning, the one that I’ve seen racing up ahead of the happiness of Christmas and on the ends of Superman’s Halloween costume, the day I was planning to get a tattoo in memoriam, remembrance, symbolism and flagellation, was wrong.
I thought that November 9th was my due date – that in three days, if I’d had the baby last year and he or she’d been born on its due date like Zoë was, it would have been one. I’ve been preparing myself for nearly two months to feel as if my heart was melting out of my eyelids on November the 9th.
But no, it’s November 25th.
On one hand, it’s a good thing because my sister’s due date is today and selfishly, I really hoped that her first baby wouldn’t have the same birthday as the one that I didn’t get to have would’ve.
Sadly, I think my next appointment with my shrink is on that day. Poor psychoghandi’s gonna be stuck with a locked-up tight, angry, argumentative and weepy emo.
Painfully, this time of year, the space between Halloween – which I wouldn’t be sad to lose out of the calendar – and Christmas – which I hope that every day could be like – is also when The Ex gets older by a year, and when I get to celebrate a birthday and all of my sisters and mom do, too. It’s when I fantasize about the perfect whatever to give Zoë, a best friend, a puppy we spend time with. It’s when glee is shared over Starbucks’ return to eggnog beverages, I might go up to a size 1 and I start thinking about all of the resolutions I could have and my motivation for damning conformity and boycotting resolutions (just like nearly everyone else). It’s when snow flakes fall and The Ex calls me, from where ever, regardless of our current level of hatred and squees “snow!” into the phone, just like I always used to do.
This is the time of year when potential is huge and it’s usually the space between reality, if you know what I mean. It’s fucking magic, November 1st to December 24th.
And now, and forever more, I have a not-baby anniversary during the middle of it.
The thing of it is, maybe getting the date wrong is bad of me – I had to look back through my archives to find the post when I announced it – but…caring, and being sad and being okay with that, with a couple of tears running down my face and a will to hug Zoë and a spine-chilling fear coupled with an intense need for another baby? Might just be a good thing after all.
